Nuclear consultation draws big P.A. crowd
By Charlene Tebbutt, For The StarPhoenixJune 9, 2009Comments (6)
Officials conducting a public meeting on the possibility of building a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan needed more chairs to accommodate everyone at the Prince Albert meeting Monday.
Close to 400 people attended the meeting at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre, the first public consultation meeting here on the future of uranium in the province.
The meeting was part of consultations around the province's Uranium Development Partnership (UDP), which recommends 3,000 megawatts of nuclear power to meet future energy demands.
The majority voiced their objection to a proposal from Ontario's Bruce Power to build a nuclear reactor somewhere in the Prince Albert economic corridor, which stretches from that city west to Lloydminster.
Pat Grayston, a Shellbrook resident, said nuclear power doesn't make economic sense.
"What I don't understand is why the Saskatchewan taxpayer is being asked to subsidize an industry that won't even benefit its own citizens," Grayston said.
Leo Kurtenbach, a Cudworth resident, spoke about his great-granddaughter, who was born two weeks ago.
"She might be inclined to say, in the words of that famous TV personality, Dr. Phil, 'Whatever were our parents thinking?' " Kurtenbach said.
Dan Perrins, chair of the public consultations, said the Prince Albert meeting attracted the largest number of residents so far in Saskatchewan.
Meetings have been held in other communities including Saskatoon, Regina, Swift Current and Yorkton.
He said negative perceptions of the nuclear industry are to be expected, although some positive comments are usually also heard.
The majority of concerns are focused on finding alternative ways to produce energy, along with the health and safety of nuclear power.
A study conducted on behalf of the City of Prince Albert found 71 per cent of residents are in favour of investigating nuclear power options.
The UDP public consultations are set to wrap up next week. Perrins is scheduled to release his report based on the public meetings at the end of August.
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Half-truths on reactor deplorable
By Jean-Pierre Ducasse, Special to The Star Phoenix June 4, 2009
Following is the viewpoint of the writer, a member of the Green Party of Saskatchewan and a biology teacher at Mount Royal Collegiate.
A half-truth is worse than a lie because a half-truth misleads people under the pretense of truthfulness.
Bruce Power has told us many half-truths. It has told us that the funding of the proposed nuclear reactor will come entirely from private enterprise. It has told us that no taxpayers' money will be spent on this project.
One-third of the money for the reactor is coming from TransCanada, one of Canada's largest oil and gas companies. You can be certain that if TransCanada is spending billions of dollars to build a reactor, it will pass its costs on to you and me in terms of higher costs at the pump and higher heating costs of our homes.
The last nuclear reactor built in Canada cost $14.4 billion. TransCanada can bill us whatever it likes and we have to pay it. A tax by any other name is still a tax. Saskatchewan taxpayers will pay for this reactor out of their own pockets.
Bruce Power has told us that nuclear energy is clean, as it does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Its main market for the 320 MW of extra electricity is TransCanada. This company has been thinking for some time of building a nuclear reactor to provide the energy necessary to extract the oil from the Saskatchewan and Alberta oilsands.
If Bruce supplies the energy, TransCanada would be able to produce 1.75 trillion barrels of oil. When Canada was still in the Kyoto accord, our carbon dioxide emission goal was 558 megatonnes of carbon dioxide a year. If 1.75 trillion barrels of oil is used, 554,750 megatonnes of carbon dioxide will be produced. This amount of carbon dioxide liberated into the atmosphere would result in the catastrophic destruction of all life on Earth.
Bruce Power says nuclear energy is clean, with one kilogram of uranium producing as much energy as 1,500 tonnes of coal. But it does not tell you that one kg of plutonium waste from one of its reactors is enough to kill every human being on the planet.
A study done by Claudia Spix at the University of Mainz in Germany found that children under five years of age who live close to nuclear reactors have their chance of developing leukemia increased by 50 per cent. In its website, Bruce Power says the choice of the reactor site will depend on its proximity to aquifers, water wells and the location of endangered species.
If its reactor is so clean and does not pollute, then why would Bruce take these factors into account when choosing a site? The company is acknowledging that the nuclear reactor is unsafe and wants to locate it as far away as possible from these areas.
My baby boy, Gabriel, was born this week. He is 7 lbs. 12 oz, 20 inches long and has lots of curly black hair. He is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. If we build a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan, there will be boys like Gabriel who will stop having birthdays, who won't grow old like the other boys. They'll never drive a car or kiss a girl, never fall in love or get married.
Half-truths are dangerous because they are easy to mistake for the whole story.
This is the whole story.
Bruce Power wants to build a reactor that will be paid for by the residents of our province. It wants to cheaply develop the Athabasca tarsands and produce large amounts of oil that will spew catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It wants to build a reactor that will make some children deathly sick.
This is the truth that Bruce Power isn't telling you.
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Op-ed errors deplorable
The Star Phoenix June 9, 2009
Re: Half-truths on reactor deplorable (SP, June 4). Polarization seems to have rendered an open and honest debate about nuclear power virtually impossible, but let's at least get some facts straight.
I cannot comment on what Bruce Power has or hasn't said in Saskatchewan, but some of the mistakes in Jean-Pierre Ducasse's Op-ed are also deplorable.
The 1.75 trillion barrels of oil he suggests would be produced by TransCanada is almost twice as much as has been pumped out of the ground in the entire world since 1850. Burning 1.75 trillion barrels of oil would generate about 150 billion tonnes of CO2, about 280,000 times higher than the number he quoted, not to mention about 3,500 times the total annual global release of greenhouse gases.
To allay unwarranted fears that nuclear reactors might contaminate drinking water sources, Bruce Power went the "extra mile" by publicly stating it will not build the reactor near aquifers, wells or endangered species. Ducasse uses Bruce Power's sensitivity to environmental concerns as evidence that the reactors are dangerous.
When Ontario announced in 2007 that new nuclear reactors would be built, tens of thousands of people in Bruce County and the Municipality of Clarington signed petitions to have the reactors located in their community. Clarington won.
Like Ducasse, many of these people have young children too, and I am sure they love their children no less. However, they have had years of experience living with nuclear power. They know, for example, that power reactors release about one-tenth as much radioactivity as do the coal-burning plants Saskatchewan currently relies on.
Vincent Tume
Society of Professional Engineers & Associates
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